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Through Rose-Tinted Specs
Memories of Balbriggan in the 50's
Copyright 2005
By Roger Turner

Part 4: Light a Candle and Say a Prayer

I am often puzzled as to why in the fifties in Sheffield, Sundays were long boring days, whilst, in Balbriggan, well let's say, they were much more exciting.
I should say that there were some similarities.
'...and make sure you wash behind your ears!'
Why were mothers obsessed with washing behind the ears?
'Let me have a look!' ... Whack! 'You could grow potatoes behind there! Go and do it again!'
We kids were washed, brushed and done up like a dog's dinner in our best clothes.
I hated getting dressed up at home, but somehow, I didn't mind in Balbriggan. Once our mothers were happy with our appearance, we kids were placed on chairs and told not to move an inch, or else.
And was it only we kids that dressed up? Not on your life! My mother always brought with her that hat. No I'm not going to describe it, I'm going to let you describe it, for all mothers wore one for church, including yours.
Did dressing up make God sit up and take notice? I doubt it. Mind you, he probably had a right good laugh when he saw some of them hats.
What was it with women and hats? And why did they have to try and outdo each other? What ever it was, we kids never found out.
Now I feel that I must tell you that I do not come from a long line of devout Catholics. I was baptised back in Sheffield, so was our Pat, but Mother was converted to Catholicism in Balbriggan.

Her parents, Nan and Stevie Calow, were not Catholics and, to my memory, were not religious at all, yet they allowed Mother to become a Catholic. Mother used to tell me she became a Catholic after going to church in Balbriggan with Aunty Eileen and her family.
Complicated, isn't it? Well, it's about to get even more complicated, because my dad's family were all Quakers. He became Catholic after meeting Mother, and they were married in St Wilfred's Catholic Church, Sheffield on Easter Saturday 1939.
But, getting back to the fifties, in Sheffield churches were often cold, dark and forbidding places, run by a parish priest who was usually quite elderly, and set in his ways. A spotty young curate bursting with ideas would try to assist him. Conflict and contrasts could not be avoided.
If the young 'un said Mass he would mumble, splutter, um and err or rush his way through the service. The old priest, on the other hand, had been doing it for years and said mass at a slick but leisurely pace. The young curate would give a short sermon whilst the old priest would drawl on and on in that monotone voice for hours if left to his own devices. I'm quite sure that he kept all his old sermons in a filing cabinet and fetched out and said the same sermon on the same Sunday every year. Why he didn't just stand up and say.. '47' then sit down again, was beyond me (maybe he got repeat fees like they do on the TV). But he would set off on automatic pilot and drawl on until the parish elders fell asleep.
The organist, woken by the snores, usually saved us: The old priest would be in mid-drawl. The organist, wanting to get off to the pub, played the first chord, and. the choir, not wishing to be left behind, would then burst into life.. 'Credo in Unum Deo...' That sorted the old priest out...
But in Balbriggan, things were very different; the church was bright, warm and welcoming. Several priests ran the parish back then, assisted by an assortment of nuns, monks and anybody else they could rope in.

I think I must explain a few things that might just be relevant. Firstly, back then, all Masses were said in Latin. Secondly, we kids in Sheffield were taught the Latin responses and could recite them parrot fashion without understanding one blooming word. Just whom Mayor Cooper was, remained one of those unexplained mysteries of childhood.
Me, being rebellious even back then, once asked the old priest why we said Mass in Latin and got a thick ear for my pains. 'That's the way it has always been and always will be...'
The young curate was more forthcoming and told me that no matter where in the world you heard mass you would be able to follow it. Well, let's examine that statement.
1) Most people never went more than a few miles from home in those days.
2) I couldn't understand one word of Latin if spoken in a broad Irish accent.
3) I once went on holiday to Malta and it was even harder to understand them.
Even so, I still enjoyed going to Mass in Balbriggan.

We set off at least half an hour before Mass was due to start and within a few yards we would encounter other families on the same quest. As long as were walking in the same direction, we had no problems. But as we met families coming back from the previous service delays would occur.
'Ah, 'tis yourself, Eileen Calow, as was. Grand to see you again, grand. Sure I didn't know you were over. And there's me thinking you'd be calling for a whet of ta and chat about the auld days...'
Here we go again!
But we had the means of escape, and while Mother promised to call the next day we children would lengthen our stride, and, tightly gripping our pennies, headed past the field full of cow-pats on Market Green, and round the corner towards the church.
Silvered iron railings separated the church from the road, and behind these railings people from the earlier service mingled with those waiting for the next mass to start.
Pushing our way through, we entered the calmness of the church, and headed for the side alter to light a candle and pray for the speedy recovery of Rory and Rita's father.
I had been lighting candles and praying for Uncle Raymond McKenna for as long as I could remember, but, to be quite honest, upto that point I never knew him.

Aunty Eileen had married Raymond about the same time as my mother married my dad, but after Rory and Rita were born he developed T.B. and went into Peamount, in Dublin. I didn't know what T.B. was, except that it was serious.
I was never included in conversations between Mother and Aunty Eileen, and only heard his name mentioned in hushed whispers. Our Pat knew all about his illness because she was going to be nurse, but you know what big sister are like, she wouldn't tell me.
I now know that he had developed TB in his bones and was kept in hospital for many years, taking all sorts of treatment in his stride as they searched for a miracle cure.

We children did our bit by saying prayers and lighting candles, but alas it all seemed in vain...
Then one year our prayers were answered and we came over for a holiday to be met by this stranger living in Aunty Eileen's house.
I was of the age of innocence when I feared nobody, but I can clearly remember that this stranger, with his deep Irish accent, and twisted body terrified me.
Looking back, I can't understand why, for within a few hours he had put me totally at ease.

On the back of the kitchen door was an old fiddle. 'Is that your violin?' I once asked him.
'Sure, that's no violin,' Raymond corrected me, 'it's me old fiddle!' He then reached up, took it down and pressed it in my direction. 'Here, let me see what you can do with it.'
I had never been allowed to even touch the thing 'But, I, er...'
'Ah, sure you can,' he insisted, and tightened the bow. 'I know you're musical, now come on and show me what you can do.'
Believe me, the noise I made was like the sound of the Banshee carrying a sack full of mating cats all being run over by a steamroller...
I never asked, nor was asked, to play the thing ever again.
---
Uncle Raymond was a lovely fella. To look at him you would not be able to see the immense pain he must have suffered in those past years and was still suffering.
Despite this pain, Uncle Raymond soon set about clearing the weeds in what had passed for a back garden, and gradually turned it into a productive vegetable plot.
I can clearly recall a knock on the door and some child standing there with a few copper coins in hand, running a message for her mammy.
'Mammy says, can she buy a head of cabbage?'
One would be freshly cut and handed to the child in return for the coppers.

Not content with the back garden, Uncle Raymond soon acquired a plot of land somewhere near Market Green, behind the houses on Skerries Street. He tended his crops by adapting spades, hoes and forks and giving them an extra-long handle. If he had weeding or close work to do, he would throw an old piece of sacking down on the soil and lay down on it to do his work. I would often go to that plot with him, but he would not accept a helping hand in getting down or up.
'Sure, I'd have to do if there's no one else here...'
I have to say that the thought of Uncle Raymond working through the pain barrier has always been a source of inspiration to me. In my late teens I had bad accident at work that left me with a permanently mangled and painful hand, and I too refused to give in to the pain... but that's another story.
Uncle Raymond had the knack of growing all things especially scallions. In England we call them Spring Onions, but they're not a patch on what Uncle Raymond called Scallions.
'Why do you call them Scallions?' I once asked and was treated to one of his stories.
And could the man tell a story! 'Ah, well, now wait 'till i tell you. Tis a good thing you asked me that..' and he spend a half hour or so explaining what I already knew, that a scallion was just big spring onion.
No matter how busy he was he always had time for a chat.
You could ask him a simple question, like the time a funeral car passed and he told me 'Sure, they'll have one hell of a wake for that one.'
'What's a wake?' I asked.
Raymond would lean against his shovel and set off on one of his tales.
'Ah, well, now let me tell you. I'll have to take you back hundreds of years, when it was normal for people to eat and drink from pewter plates and cups. But some of these plates had a very high lead content. Now, if you had pickled pork, of strong Irish whisky, they reacted with the lead, and the combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a wake.'
I never really knew if he was spinning me a yarn or just embroidering the truth a little, but whatever it was I would sit there enthralled.
I remember once asking my mother why one priest had a red nose, only to be told he had a heavy cold. Well it must have been a right stinker of a cold, for that red nose lasted for years.
When I asked Uncle Raymond, he told me that he was a little too fond of the hard stuff. Mind you, it took him about twenty minutes to tell me.

He could always tell a good story. Over the next few years, Uncle Raymond and Aunty Eileen had four more children: Young Raymond, Mary, Donal and Colm. As in all families, these children all had different traits, but were still great children... but that's a story for the future...

So, where was I? Oh yes, Lighting a candle.
Now, I've already admitted that I couldn't follow the mass in Latin, but the Irish congregation could, and they sped the whole service along at break-neck speed.
Then there were the hymns. Sung with gusto by everyone, not just the choir, as generally happened in back Sheffield. I always enjoyed a good singsong, and would join in with the hymns. I once was persuaded to join the choir back in our church in Sheffield, and sung there for several years, only leaving a few weeks before the new organ was installed. It was only after I left that they realised that the old pipe organ wasn't at fault...
I don't know if my memory is playing tricks, but I seem to think that in Balbriggan children didn't sit with their family but occupied the front few benches.
I've asked our Pat if she could remember, but she's as much use as chocolate fireguard. That's the problem with big sisters; they become unreliable, and loose their marbles, as they get older.
When I was about four, I nagged Mother to let me go to school with our Pat. Eventually she agreed, and on the first day, our Pat took me to school with her, but she left me with lots of strange kids in the babies' class when I thought I would be sat beside her. Unreliable, that's what big sisters are. Unreliable!
She was just as unreliable once Mass was over. By now, my stomach thought someone had cut my throat, and I wanted to get back for dinner. But our Pat joined in with Mother and Aunty Eileen outside the church, gossiping.
Rory and Rita had their friends to chat to, and that left me all alone, sad and starving to death. So what did I do?
That's right, I got out me mouth organ and had a quick suck of the few crumbs that had already accumulated inside the thing..

To be continued...